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Collection 479 - William Adam Stier. T3 Transcript

This is a complete and accurate transcript of the tape of the
oral history interview of William Adam Stier (CN 479, T3) in the Archives of
the Billy Graham Center. The tape is the conclusion of the interview on tape
T2. No spoken words have been omitted, except for any non-English phrases which
could not be understood by the transcribers. Foreign terms are not commonly
understood appear in italics. In very few cases words were too unclear to be
distinguished. If the transcriber was not completely sure of having gotten what
the speaker said, "[?]" was inserted after the word or phrase in question. If
the speech was inaudible or indistinguishable, "[unclear]" was inserted. Grunts
and verbal hesitations such as "ah" or "um" were usually omitted. The transcribers
have not attempted to phonetically replicate English dialects but have instead
entered the standard English word the speaker was expressing. Readers should
remember that this is a transcript of spoken English, which follows a different
rhythm and rule than written English. Foreign terms or phrases which may be
unfamiliar appear in italics.... Three dots indicate an interruption or break in the train
of thought within the sentence on the part of the speaker.

.... Four dots indicate what the transcriber believes
to be the end of an incomplete sentence.

( ) Words in parentheses are asides made by the speaker.

[ ] Words in brackets are comments by the transcriber.

This transcription was made by Katherine Graber and Bob
Shuster and was completed in May 2014.CN 479, T03. Interview with
William Adam Stier by Paul Ericksen on January 20, 1993.

STIER: I would feel
a little sorry for them that they have to fly out. There is never a better conditioning
than one got by taking six weeks to get there. The transition from USA for a
new person...

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh.

STIER: ...that’s
flying, as it were, to Amsterdam and the next night flying right down into the
African...to the fray, as it were. I really feel sorry for them. I think a trip
out by ship just gives such excellent time for adjustment, emotionally, spiritually,
every other...every other way. Now, of course, what I’m saying now would
have been true of us also. When we arrived on the mission field as young people,
I’m sure that some of the older missionaries said, “What do we have?”
[laughs]. See? And that is one of the greatest things that has to be done as
far as new missionaries are concerned and old missionaries adjusting to one
another. And that would be true now today with your new, new missionaries going
out, and your old ones who are there, been there twenty, thirty years (maybe
some of them forty years) to make that adjustment between the two outlooks,
social life, and culture, and everything, it’s so different, you see,...

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh.

STIER: ...and there’s
such a need for grace with one another and to try to remember that you were
exactly that way when you went out to the older missionary of your day [laughs].
And if you remember that, then of course you will be a little easier on the
new missionaries.

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh. Did
you work with any short-term workers coming out?

STIER: No, they weren’t
doing that in our day. No.

ERICKSEN: Not even in
the later years?

STIER: Well, right at
the...maybe the last couple years, but I don’t even know that we had one
on our...our station. We did have a couple fellows visited [sic], and they were
great. Some of these young fellows I do remember two that came out, and playing
volleyball with those Bible school men. They just enjoyed it. I’m
talking about the Africans. They just enjoyed it. This one fellow, he
could pick up the ball almost with one hand, and they marveled at a thing like
that, you know. So they had the enthusiasm of youth, and just...just great.
Just great.

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh.

STIER: But there is
an adjustment. That is of course a very light thing...

ERICKSEN: Right.

STIER: ...that I’m
using as illustration because when you get down to the nitty gritty of actually
doing the work day after day after day, a short-term worker, you see, he’s
only there for a short time, then he’s gone, and that’s it. But
you do run into some difficulties sometimes...

ERICKSEN:Uh-huh.

STIER: ...especially
[pauses], one...one difficulty I would see is the culture of the African, young
men and young women, the distance that they keep between each other, that is,
at least in the eye of the public. Then to have missionaries come out, maybe
a fellow and a girl. They’re on the same station. Their fellowship with
one another would be considered very, very out of place in the eyes of an African,
if you follow me?

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh.

STIER: And it’s...it’s
a cultural difference, you see. And I think, of course, that is even greater
today than it was a number of years ago. There’s just so many liberties
that are taken these days that weren’t even taken by the missionaries...new
missionaries in the olden days. But there were cultural difficulties that could
spring up when... unless missionaries were really oriented.

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh.

STIER: That’s
why you need orientation schools. We never had an orientation school when we
went out. We got it right there when...with our fellow missionaries when we
arrived, but there’s real need for orientation these days, because you’ve
got to remember that you’re in an altogether different culture.

ERICKSEN: What were
the strengths and weaknesses of your training back at PSOB [Philadelphia School
of Bible]? And training by the mission?

STIER: Yeah. Well, we
weren’t...we weren’t actually trained, you know, to go out as a
missionary. It wasn’t a missionary course. They just had the regular Bible
school course that we took....

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh.

STIER: And I will say
this: that even though I appreciated all I was taught at PSOB, I learned an
awful lot of the Word and so many other things right out there in Africa. ‘Course
you have the time to study, and of course, teaching in school too, preparing
lessons and everything, I...I...I really feel I got another great education
out there in Africa that Bible school would never prepare you for. It can’t,
as it were. And you just...you just learn things about the Word and about the
Lord and everything that you just...you just can’t get it in Bible school
that’s all. So that...I don’t know how else I could answer that
question. [Pauses] We were glad to go and, well, we had very good teachers out
there among the missionaries. They were very faithful in telling us what to
do and what not to do as far as the Africans were concerned.

ERICKSEN: What did they
tell you not to do?

STIER: Well, you have
to watch it...just to give you an illustration of African culture: you would
never talk to an African and point your finger like this. Never. Because that’s
just like putting a chip on your shoulder as far as an American is concerned
and knocking it off. You’re asking for a fight. Never, never use your
finger. You would never...if you’re sitting with a group and you say,
“How many are here? One, two, three, four, five,” you’d never
do that with your finger.

ERICKSEN:You’d
never point at them?

STIER: Never, never
point and count out, you see. And there, so many small things that you...you...you
really have to watch. Never would you ever greet a person with a left hand.
Always the right hand. And many times you take your...take a hold of your right
hand with your left hand when you’re shaking, even when they would serve
Communion.

ERICKSEN: Like holding
your wrist?

STIER: Hold the wrist,
yeah, and serve the Communion plate. Give, you always gave this way. [With the
right hand] And there are other things. I just am caught off guard now, but
you just have to watch a lot of the cultural things if you don’t want
to offend them.

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh.

STIER: Although, I will
say that the African Christians were very gracious. They recognized that we
didn’t know, and they were ready to overlook the things that we may have
done....

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh.

STIER: .Right.

ERICKSEN: I’m
curious (and this is in some ways backing up a little) but how did your work
as field director, what did it do to your perspective of the work and the responsibilities
of the mission and the different things that were going on throughout the country?

STIER: Well, as you
know, of course, as field director, we were between the field council and the
missionaries. And then as field director, I was between the field council and
the home council....

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh.

STIER: They’re
the two positions you’re in. You’re...if the field council has a
meeting, and they decide certain things, then the field director would go the
missionaries and give the directions that came out of that meeting. And it wasn’t
always what you might call a disciplinary visit. It was a visit of just simply
seeing if everything’s going all right and hear what they have to say
and everything. But that is your relat...relationship. Then also, you are, were
always in consultation with the home council. They would write to the field
director if they had anything that they wanted to say. And even the field council...I
mean the home council I should say, I’m sorry...they weren’t altogether
up to this change that was coming over. They had to adjust to it just as much
as we as missionaries had to do it. And there were times when I sensed that
when I would write to them, because I remember at least once when I got a letter,
and they said something about, “We hope you’re not going to do this,”
you see. It was a very gracious letter, understand, but it still showed that
the whole thought of doing what we were planning to do had not really gotten
over [Ericksen laughs]. Yeah, and there was fear, there was fear in it, I’m
sure. They thought, I guess, that maybe the whole of the work would have been
lost or something like that, which it wasn’t I know. So that’s the
position of field director this side, and then that side. Then you just have
to carry on.

ERICKSEN: Did the home
office ever...I mean could they mandate decisions for you?

STIER: No, no, they
did not. We...we were totally, it was totally up to us to make the decisions
for the field. Of course, it would have to be in the context of the constitution
of the mission.

ERICKSEN: Right.

STIER: If they saw that
we were getting out of line with the constitution, they would...

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh.

STIER: ...could step
in, but they gave us perfect freedom on the things and decisions we made on
the operation at home. Yeah. Right.

ERICKSEN: What...over
your career, what did you enjoy most about working for Africa Inland Mission?

STIER: Well, of course
I think I said before that it was the privilege of....

ERICKSEN: Yeah, okay.

STIER:....teaching.
Teaching, that was...that was what I liked.

ERICKSEN: How did, you
know, let’s pretend that I had an African, a Tanzanian sitting right next
to you, and I...I asked him to evaluate you as a missionary, what do you think
he’d say? [Stier laughs] What would he say you were...your strengths and
weaknesses were?

STIER: Well, I don’t
like to say this, but, you know, the Africans give you names. Sometimes you
hear them, and sometimes you don’t [both laugh]. But they gave me a name
which I was told I got it, and it was a name in Sukuma because of my teaching
in Bible school. They called me “Emprjiwa Mpuza”[?]. Now
the translation of that is “He’s a tanner of hides.” Now of
course here in the States you might think “Tanner of Hides” is tanning
someone’s hide [beating someone], but that isn’t the thought. The
thought was–and they told me–it’s tanning the hide so that
it becomes a thing of beauty and usefulness, you see, because they get, kill
animals, and then they like to put them out and dry them and tan the hide because
it becomes a useful article to them, and that was one thing that they told me
my name was among other them: “Tanner of Hides,” because, they said,
“When we come in to Bible school, and we hear your teaching and then realize
what we were teaching when we were out there not having had any Bible training,
they said, we were just killing people”. That was actually what one fellow
said: “We were just killing people with our teaching.” ‘Course,
that’s not literally,...

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh.

STIER: ...but...and
they appreciated my ability to get over to them the Word. Now this is very interesting
but just about three weeks ago I had a letter from one of my students. I had
him for three years. He was single when he was in school. After he graduated,
he went out to pastor a church, got married. I think he has four or five children
now. But he also went to, he went, now he’s attending Nasa Theological
College [in Tanzania]. He wanted to further his education. And I had had a previous
letter to him, wrote to him and said that, “In my Sunday school class
here I am teaching Revelation to the people in the class,” so he wrote
back to me just a couple weeks ago, and he said, “So you’re teaching
Revelation to the people there in your Sunday school class?” He said,
“The name you were given,” (I had never heard this one of course
before) the name you were given when you taught Revelation and Daniel out there
was jo wah wufinuo nataniedi,[?] and he said, “That name is still
going around among the Africans, , no jo,[?] its jogo.[?] And
the word jogo[?] means rooster. And he said, “You were given the
name ‘The Rooster of Revelation and Daniel’ [laughs]. And they were
so thrilled though when we went through those two books with the Africans, you
know, so new to them and so profound to them, as it were, the revelations
that are given there. And so he said, “You were give that name when you
were out there,” he said, “and that name is still going around,
jo go wah wufinuo nataniedi.”[?] So they’re the only two
things I would know. I do know once one major remark about the way that I ran
the Bible school, of course I had been running it for years, and I think I went
home one furlough, or was it...I think it was when I moved to Majahida, another
man was put in there, and they had difficulty in the school. And they said,
they remarked [door closes in background]....yeah, somebody coming in?

ERICKSEN: Go ahead.

STIER: I was just saying
that they had a lot of trouble there in the school just apparently with one
person, and the missionary did not know how to handle the trouble, and he made
the remark that it just, “The school just isn’t being run the way
you ran it.” He was implying the fact of the way it was administered,
because through the years I learned where you had to be, you know, really strong
and declare yourself and not let people get away with things, and then other
areas you have to...

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh.

STIER: ...know how to
handle situations. That there are the only two clues that I would have. They
may have had names for me that I’d be ashamed to tell you [both laugh].
Who knows? But...I don’t like to say those things, because I’m not
boasting or anything.

ERICKSEN: Sure. No,
I understand.

STIER: I just chuckled
when heard that about the jo go wah wufinuo nataniedi,[?] the Rooster
of the....

ERICKSEN: As you look
at yourself, what were your weaknesses as a missionary?

STIER: Well, let’s
see. [Pauses] I probably am not as outgoing as I should be as a missionary.
I always like to read, like to study, and I just really wasn’t as outgoing
perhaps with even my fellow missionaries as I should have been. That...that
I would see as a weakness that I would like to be corrected. I like to be outgoing.
I like...I like outgoing people, I should put it that way. I think it’s
always a pleasure and a joy to find somebody who just is outgoing. I am not
that way necessarily in the natural. And it’s just, I presume, my makeup,
that’s all....

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh.

STIER: I trust it hasn’t
hurt too much. Right.

ERICKSEN: I asked Reverend
Kline [Stanley Roy Kline] if he could think of, tell me who the characters in
the mission were, and the...you know, the...and I wasn’t sure how to define
characters, but let me ask you the same question. Who were kind of the characters
on the Tanzanian field?

STIER: Characters on
the Tanzanian field? [Pauses]

ERICKSEN: Or maybe other
fields

STIER: Well, no I don’t....I
wouldn’t know how to answer that. I do know Miss [Lucilda] Newton, who
was an excellent teacher there at Katungulu, she was...had a very good sense
of humor, and I always remember once she said, “You know what I’m
going to do? I’m going to write a book.” She did write books. She
wrote a couple books on the Africans. They were sold, and I guess they’re
out of print now. And she said, “That book is going to be Off the Pedestal:
Missionaries I Have Known.” That was going to be her title. And so
we kidded her, and we...and I said to her especially, I said, “Lu, when
you write that book, Off the Pedestal: Missionaries I Have Known, remember
I’m going to write the last chapter of that book, and it’s going
to be about you.” She was a very, very excellent woman, and had a good
sense of humor, and very, very talented. As far as characters, I don’t
know that we’ve had any that stood out as being.....

ERICKSEN: Did missionaries
ever play practical jokes on each other?

STIER: Yeah, yeah. I
remember one missionary, I won’t mention names, but I remember one missionary.
He liked tease, and we had a missionary, a man. He...he was bald-headed. And
he [pauses], he was...he was the headmaster of one of our schools there. But
anyhow, this other missionary was kidding him about his bald head. And he said
(how did he say that now?), “There are two things that bother a missionary...a
person with a bald head, and they are fools and flies.” And he said, “I’m
not being bothered with a fly right now,” [laughs] something like that.
I thought that was pretty good example. He just was full of it, you know? Yeah,
but I just wouldn’t be able to tell you as far as characters are concerned.
Everybody has their own characteristics, but there, I don’t remember anything
that was really outstanding.

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh. What
did you find were the spiritual hardships of being a missionary?

STIER: Well, yeah, you
do miss the fellowship of a...of your own home church when you leave. There’s
no doubt about it whatsoever. That is...that is one of the greatest things.
We had fellowship with the Africans, great fellowship, attend their churches,
of course. We preach, and they preach and everything, but when you come right
down to it, there’s just something about the fellowship you have with
your loved ones in your own home church that you miss. And that’s one
thing that I liked about our church. Whenever they would send a tape out to
us of one of the services, not only enjoyed the message, but even enjoyed hearing
the organ play and the singing, you know. It just...just would take you back
to the church, and that’s a great need. There’s a great, great need
for missionaries to have that contact with...

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh.

STIER: ...their own
churches especially when they’re out there in the field, because if you
don’t, you can slide down. And you have to be very, very careful. You
have to discipline yourself to keep up your devotions, because if you don’t,
you’re in trouble.

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh.

STIER: My wife and I,
we always got up in the dark and lit the lantern, and I had to be at Bible school
at 7:30 and had to have breakfast before that. We usually got up about six,
quarter to six just to be able to have almost an hour’s devotions before
we would get off to school and get down to the work. You have to do it. That’s
all there is to it. If...if you miss out on that, then you’re going to
miss out on a life of victory during the day.

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh.

STIER: Things will get
you that shouldn’t get you.

ERICKSEN: Did you ever
feel burnt out in your work?

STIER: No, I did not.
That’s sort of a, shall I say, sort of a new thing here in the States.
And I can appreciate it as far as pastors are concerned. When I see what is
expected of pastors these days, not only to preach but to be everything else
in the church....

ERICKSEN: Yeah.

STIER: ....administrators,
this, that, and the other thing, you can understand how they get burned out.
But no, I wouldn’t say that we experienced that on the field.

ERICKSEN: Anything you’d
like to add.

STIER: I think I’ve
said too much now [laughs].

ERICKSEN: Well, we....

STIER: Except as I said,
I...I enjoyed my missionary career...

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh.

STIER: ...and would
not have changed it and would be glad to do it again. I’d do a few things
differently, but...

ERICKSEN: Yep.

STIER: ...just praise
the Lord for the opportunity. Yeah.

ERICKSEN: Well, thank
you for sharing your story with us, spending the time.